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MDPI Contact

Information for Editors

MDPI is an academic open access publisher based in Basel, Switzerland, and was initially founded in 1996 to collect and preserve rare chemical research samples. To support samples project, MDPI started the journal Molecules the same year. Since 1996, MDPI has grown into a publishing house with more than 190 diverse open access journals and over 5.8 million webpage views each month. With further editorial offices in Beijing and Wuhan (China), Barcelona (Spain) and Belgrade (Serbia) MDPI is backed by over 24,418 academic editors and scientists worldwide.

Open Access

Open Access mean that readers can access published material for free, without paying a subscription charge. MDPI articles are freely available immediately after publication. This means that researchers, students, and interested lay people from anywhere in the world have rapid access to the latest research through MDPI journals. All MDPI content is distributed under a Creative Commons open access license.

We finance publication through article processing charges (APC) http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc, paid by authors and their institutions. APCs cover the cost of managing the peer review process, professional copy-editing, and promotion of published research MDPI has no other source of income.

For authors, open access means a potentially wider circle of readers for their research papers, with some research suggesting that open access papers are more highly cited.

At MDPI, we believe that open access offers value for money for researchers—our income per article is substantially lower than established subscription publishers. We offer a good deal for funding bodies—outcomes can be widely circulated and no barrier for reading offers transparency to those footing the bill. We also offer transparency to tax payers, who indirectly fund a great deal of research—through open access they have the opportunity to see the results of their contributions.

Journals Published by MDPI

More than 190 journal titles are currently published by MDPI and available online in open access format at www.mdpi.com. MDPI continuously launches new journals in response to academic developments, and to be able to serve additional research communities and their needs.

MDPI Editorial Offices

MDPI is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. Three branch offices are located in China (two in Beijing, one in Wuhan) and one office in Spain (Barcelona). The in-house staff consists of Managing Editors, Assistant Editors, Production Editors, English Editors, Copyeditors, Data Specialists, Software Engineers and Administrative Specialists. Except for most English Editors, all are employed by MDPI and its subsidiaries and work at the MDPI offices. Our collaborating editors on our Editorial Boards are typically employed at academic institutions or corporate research facilities located all over the world. The contact with the in-house editorial staff is mainly by e-mail and telephone. The in-house editorial staff normally work for several journals related to their educational background. Assistant Editors process manuscripts through the peer-review and production procedures; Managing Editors have the editorial responsibility for the journals; Production Editors, English Editors, Copyeditors and Data Specialists are responsible for putting accepted content into a publishable format (full-text PDF, XML and HTML versions). Contact information can be found at www.mdpi.com/about/contact/.

Editorial Process, Peer-Review and Production

Articles submitted to MDPI journals are subject to strict peer-reviewing. In most journals the process is single blind peer-review (the reviewers know the authors’ identities, but the authors do not know the reviewers’ identities). Some journals operate double blind peer-review (the reviewers do not know the authors’ identities until the paper has been published). The MDPI online submission system, Susy, incorporates online tools for manuscript submission, peer-reviewing and editorial decision making. The reviewers and external editors will not need to have an account with the MDPI submission system in order to finish the tasks assigned to them. Rather, the system will recognize the reviewers and external editors through one-time usable IDs in the URLs. Editors-in-Chief and Guest Editors can view articles submitted to their journal or special issue via Susy at any time.

The Instructions for Authors on the website of each MDPI journal guides authors on how to prepare and submit their manuscripts.

Once a manuscript is submitted, the submission is received by the in-house Managing Editor who will subsequently coordinate the whole editorial process for the manuscript: peer-review, decision-making, possible authors’ revision, manuscript acceptance, copyediting, English editing, proofreading and final publication. An in-house Assistant Editor will be assigned to the submitted article and will send review invitations.

At least two reports per manuscript are collected for each manuscript—three if the first two differ substantially. Reviewers must hold a PhD, have not published with the authors in the previous five years, and have recent publications in the field of the submitted manuscript.

The Editor-in-Chief, Guest Editor, or a suitable editorial board member can make the final acceptance or rejection decision for a manuscript, usually after author revision. We typically allow no more than two rounds of major revisions.

After acceptance of an article for publication, the in-house editorial staff will organize the production of the paper, which entails copyediting, English editing and final production in preparation for publication on the journal website. All journals are structured in yearly volumes and either monthly or quarterly issues. Nevertheless, articles are published online immediately after acceptance and production.

Editor-in-Chief Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief is the head of the journal, and is mainly responsible for the scientific quality of the journal. Unlike other Publishers, MDPI does not need the Editor-in-Chief to be actively involved in the editorial process, i.e. the MDPI editorial team in Basel and Beijing will take care of the majority of contact with authors and reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for assisting the Editorial Office in the management of the journal, which entails:

scientific decisions about the journal's scope,

inviting distinguished scientists to join the editorial board,

suggesting topics for special issues,

assisting the Guest Editors in the setup of special issues,

overviewing the editorial process for individual manuscripts (mainly by taking the final decision whether a paper can be published after peer-review and revisions).

The Editor-in-Chief position is honorary. As a reward for the efforts, the Editor-in-Chief can publish one or two papers per year free of charge in any of MDPI’s open access journals. The initial term for the Editor-in-Chief position is two years and can be renewed.

Editorial Board Member Responsibilities

An Editorial Board member will be asked to review one or two manuscripts per year and may help to
edit a special issue on a topic related to his or her research interests. Additionally, the Editorial Board
members will be approached for input or feedback regarding new regulations relating to the journal
from time to time. Editorial Board members are also encouraged to help to promote the journal among
their peers or at conferences. The communication with Editorial Board members is done primarily by
E-mail. The initial term for an Editorial Board membership is two years and can be renewed. An
Editorial Board member may also step down from the position at any time if he or she feels overloaded
by the requests from the journal’s Editorial Office.

Guest Editor Responsibility / Guest Editing a Special Issue

We appreciate collaborations with scholars all over the world. Special issues are normally edited by a Guest Editor who invites colleagues from the same research field to contribute an article on a topic within their expertise. The Guest Editor works together with the Editorial Office to prepare a description and keywords for the special issue webpage. We aim for at least ten articles published per special issue. Often, the Guest Editor will also write an editorial paper for the special issue. The Guest Editor usually makes decisions on the acceptance of manuscripts submitted to his or her special issue (depending on the journal’s policy—in some cases they may make a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief). Papers belonging to a special issue are published online in the journal immediately after acceptance and collected together on the special issue webpage. This means that there is no delay for authors who submit their work: it will appear shortly after acceptance, even if other papers in the special issue are still being processed.

Guest Editors should not hold conflicts of interest with authors whose work they are assessing, e.g. if they are from the same institution or collaborate closely. In this case the Editor-in-Chief or a suitable editorial board member will make final acceptance decisions for submitted papers.

Launching New Open Access Journals with MDPI

MDPI always welcomes suggestions for new journals in any research area. We are also open for publishing collaborations with research societies. Please send your publishing proposals to the Publisher, Dr. Shu-Kun Lin (e-mail: lin@mdpi.com) with a copy to Franck Vazquez (E-mail: vazquez@mdpi.com).

Comments and Questions

Please direct your general questions by E-mail to support@mdpi.com. For specific enquiries about a
journal, please e-mail the appropriate journal’s Editorial Office directly (please check the journal
websites at www.mdpi.com for the e-mail addresses). For a list of MDPI offices, addresses and phone
numbers, please see www.mdpi.com/about/contact/.